In 1962, a conflict over James Meredith's attempt to become the first black student to register at the University of Mississippi flared into an armed revolt as thousands of white segregationists descended upon Oxford to battle federal marshals deployed to the campus for Meredith's protection. President John F. Kennedy ordered 30,000 U.S. combat troops to be immediately called in as reinforcements to put down the rebellion. The struggle over civil rights had one of its most critical tests during those dark days, and with the retreat of the forces of segregation came the turning point in that conflict; massive street resistance to integration ceased to be a viable weapon in the segregationist arsenal.

William Doyle conducted hundreds of interviews, read thousands of pages of secret FBI files and accessed secretly recorded White House conversations to recreate in pulse-quickening detail one of the most pivotal events in the history of the civil rights movement. Occuring just three weeks before the Cuban missle crisis, the Battle of Oxford quickly vanished from the public consciousness; An American Insurrection is an important and riveting book that returns this shocking confrontation to its proper place in the tumultuous history of the South.

In this issue of Bold Type you'll find an exclusive essay by William Doyle, "The Past is Never Dead, as well as an excerpt from An American Insurrection.